"Unfortunately, Cameron's declaration that the 'free flow of information' can sometimes be a problem, then an aberration, seems to have turned into a pillar of the UK government's 2012 agenda. Despite declaring early on in his term that internet freedom should be respected 'in Tahrir Square as much as Trafalgar Square', his government is now considering a series of laws that would dramatically restrict online privacy and freedom of speech." The United Kingdom's crippling nanny state culture reaches the web. A country in deep financial problems, facing pervasise social unrest, censors the web to prevent riots. Sure Cameron, make it so.

"Balance" brings up ideas of 50/50 and of some kind of mediated compromise. The underlying argument here is "The government needs more powers to catch criminals". In theory, if the government didn't have to obey any law, they could catch every criminal but would of course catch every law abiding citizen. There are two problems with this: #1: The argument is wrong, the government doesn't need any more powers to catch criminals. Evidence: They are catching plenty of criminals. The other problem is this: The government does not always use the powers given to it to catch criminals to actually catch criminals. So, to be clear, for me, (I am not the orignal poster), I do _NOT_ want balance! I want the electorate to be distinctly and definitely more powerful than the government that it elects, in the same way that I want to be more powerful than my dishwasher, a tool I use to wash my dishes.